TAMPA, Fla.—The concept of identity rather than a focus just on the tools that help determine whether individuals and groups are a cause for concern is rising in importance within the Defense Department and is likely to be in the next Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), according to a department official.
In addition to possibly having a place in the QDR, the concept of identity is also being discussed either as a separate joint doctrine or as part of other joint doctrines given its criticality to national security and routine business functions within DoD, John Boyd, the director for Defense Biometrics & Forensics under the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, said at an annual conference on biometrics here.
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| John Boyd |
The Biometrics Consortium Conference, which is hosted by AFCEA, will change its name next year to the Global Identity Summit, to account for the increasing importance of identity solutions and management that incorporate various tools such as biometrics and forensics.
Boyd said that the capabilities that are associated with establishing identity will be included in the QDR.
United States and coalition forces have been collecting biometrics such as fingerprints, facial and iris images of individuals and other forensic evidence as part of wartime operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for years, helping to identify and capture terrorist and insurgents and their networks by eliminating their anonymity. Various biometric collection devices are currently in use by U.S. forces as well as other means to find evidence on exploded bomb fragments, captured weapons, bomb making laboratories and electronic devices for checking against the DoD’s authoritative biometrics database and other intelligence data.
Boyd offered at least two general benefits with advancing identity as a high-level concept within DoD strategy making. One would be helping to eliminate “stovepipes created by the use of different capabilities and technologies” by different DoD components, including the services and Combatant Commands, he said.
The second “would also increase our convergence with interagency partners who often use different technologies or taxonomies but which have the same goal of fixing identity for informed decision making,” Boyd said. “In short, adopting an identity concept would enable us to focus on what makes us common instead of what makes us different.”
Boyd said that discussions in DoD on the role of identity in the department are being informed in part by a study done last year by the Center for Naval Analyses, which defines “identity as an entity’s observed and inferred attributes sufficient for potential decision to be made about that entity. Attributes include biometric, physical, biographic, logical and contextual characteristics.” That means knowing enough about someone to make a decision, not just who they are, he said.
One of the key takeaways Boyd wanted the audience to have from his presentation is that the Defense Department “is committed to an enduring biometric enterprise” despite ongoing fiscal constraints. He said that the leadership is committed to a “strong and vibrant biometrics enterprise and some other things related to forensics.”
Others at the conference suggested that the Defense Department still has a ways to go to sustaining biometrics as an enduring capability. Currently, just one program of record exists within DoD that involves biometrics, which is the Sensitive Site Exploitation effort led by the Special Operations Command, which provides the handheld SEEK multimodal biometric capture device to Special Operations Forces deployed globally. The SEEK is made by Cross Match Technologies.
The Army manages the DoD’s authoritative biometric database, which is called the Automated Biometric Identification Systems (ABIS) and is being transitioned to the Biometric Enabling Capabilities program. It is not a program of record, although the service is working toward that end. No funding has been identified for ABIS in FY ’14 despite the fact that it is the backbone of the Defense Department’s efforts to eliminate the anonymity of insurgents and terrorist it encounters worldwide.
The Army also uses tactical biometric collection devices and is developing a competitive acquisition to purchase new handheld devices, although as of now it does not have a guaranteed line item for this that comes with a program of record.
Boyd outlined three main priorities for defense biometrics, beginning with the need to build a “sustainable biometric enterprise” that includes adequately funding enduring capabilities. The first area of focus here needs to be collection devices, the database for storing, matching and sharing biometric data, and analytical capabilities, he said.
Next is investing in future capabilities such as “improving confidence while reducing response time, increasing standoff, reducing time on target, and pushing analysis forward,” he said. More investments also need to be made in the underlying science of biometrics and there needs to be more “operationally relevant testing” to ensure that what is developed meets user’s needs, an “important topic that I think has gotten short shrift in the last 10 years.”